Portrait of Captain Burton, from "The Portfolio"

Léopold Flameng

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This print reproduces Leighton's arresting portrait (National Portrait Gallery, London) of the renowned diplomat, explorer, linguist and writer Sir Richard Burton. According to the sitter’s wife, "Leighton began to paint Richard on the 26th of April [1872], and it was very amusing. Richard was so anxious that he should paint his necktie and his pin, and kept saying to him every now and then, 'Don’t make me ugly, there’s a good fellow'...both Richard and I always retained the pleasantest memory of the many happy hours we passed in his studio." At that time, Burton was awaiting a new diplomatic post, and would leave London for Iceland in early June. The deep scar on the left cheek had been received in a javelin attack at Berbera Somalia in 1855, as Burton set out with British explorers on the first of two expeditions to seek the source of the White Nile.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art